


Queen of this Brawl

by orphan_account



Category: AI: The Somnium Files (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, References to Super Smash Brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-10-27 11:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20759282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mizuki convinces her family to go on a trip to the United States to compete in her favorite classic video game. Date doesn't want to go but Iris is very excited! Mizuki is Queen of this Brawl, and she'll show you all! A year or two post-game.





	1. TRaiN

**Author's Note:**

> Short story, mostly as a silly joke about the part Mizuki sings in the final credit sequence.
> 
> "A punch to the forehead, my kick like a warhead, you're pinned on the floor, spread. I'm queen of this Brawl, and I'll show you all!"

Date looked skeptically at Mizuki. "Why do you want to go all the way to America just to play some video game? Don't you already play with people online, Mizuki?"

Mizuki puffed her face in annoyance. "That's just netplay, idiot! Nobody takes it seriously. If you want to prove who's the best you have to do it in person, against other top players, in a tournament. And the only tournament for Brawl is in America, once a year."

Date rolled his eyes. "Well I know they have tournaments for the new Smash game here in Tokyo. Why don't you just play that, or better yet, a REAL fighting game?" Date smirked, knowing how much it annoyed Mizuki when he brought this up.

"Date, you really shouldn't talk so much. It makes you sound stupid. I've explained how the nuances of neutral and disadvantage state play out completely differently in Brawl compared to any other game in the series. And--"

"Yeah, let me stop you there, I don't actually care." Date waved his hand dismissively. 

Mizuki puffed up in annoyance. "Fine, it's not like I need you to come with me anyway."

Date twitched with worry. "They're not going to let an eighth grader onto a plane by herself! A-are they?" Mizuki's face relaxed into a bit of dejection. A moment of silence passed.

Hitomi coughed, breaking the tension. For the first time since Mizuki brought the topic up, their gaze broke, to look at Hitomi at the other corner of the dinner table, across from Iris, with a projection of Aiba sitting at the end. _Oh right, we're eating,_ Mizuki thought. "Whatever," she said aloud, pulling out her phone. As she tapped away at the screen, ignoring her family, the conversation shifted back to more mundane topics. Mizuki wasn't listening to whatever lame jokes Date told that Iris and Hitomi pretended to laugh at, nor to Aiba's gentle attempts to get Mizuki to stop using her phone at the table and participate in family time.

Before it even felt like much time had passed, the clank of the silverware made Mizuki's eyes finally lift from her screen. Iris and Date were collecting the used dishes and taking them to the sink to be washed. The bowl in front of Mizuki still had a half meal's worth of stew in it, which had surely cooled to room temperature by now. Hitomi smiled at Mizuki. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I'd love to go with you, but I don't have any vacation time I could use." Hitomi got up from her chair and started toward her and Date's room, giving Mizuki a kiss on the head as she passed by. "I'll try and talk to your father about it. I love you."

Mizuki shuddered at Hitomi calling Date her father. Even after living with him for six years and having been officially adopted for two years, she couldn't bring herself to call Date her dad, or Hitomi her mom for that matter. It felt like she was somehow betraying Renju and Shoko. Still, she was happy here and wanted to try her best to fit into her new family. "I love you too, Hitomi."

Turning her head toward the kitchen, where Date was washing dishes and handing them to Iris to dry, Mizuki spoke up loud enough that Date could hear her over the running water. "You don't need to say anything to Date, though! A-Set has a concert in America next month, so I guess we have to go!"

Iris tilted her head toward Mizuki in confusion. "I do? What happened to the show in Atami?"

"Yeah?! What about the show in Atami?! I was looking forward to that!" Date exclaimed, teeth gritted tight.

Mizuki smiled innocently and replied, "The venue cancelled the whole even just now. No idea why."

Date frowned. "Bullshi--" KZZZZZPT. "Ow! Aiba, what gives!?"

Aiba, still sitting at the a table with Mizuki, began scolding Date, "Date, while casual swearing is fine, you should not curse at your children in anger. In addition, while Mizuki is clearly manipulating Iris's schedule to get what she wants..."

"I am not!" Mizuki protested. "I just booked another venue for the same day and it happened to be in the same city as the tournament. Honestly..."

"Uh huh," the other three voices said in unison. Mizuki looked at Aiba, Iris, and Date's faces, all of their eyelids drooped in disbelief. At least Iris was smiling in amusement.

"At any rate," Aiba continued, "Lemniscate's digital sales records show that almost 77% of A-Set's audience resides in the United States. This would be a good opportunity to increase brand engagement with an international audience in a larger market. Besides, you should be encouraging Mizuki to explore her passions. Competition has also been shown increase social skills and nurture a sense of self-esteem."

Date let out an exasperated sigh. "Fiiiiine..." 

Iris let out an excited squee. "We're going to America! I can't wait to talk about this on stream! Oh, hey, Mizuki! Do you wanna stream with me tonight? I was gonna play Shovelforge, but we could play your game!"

Mizuki smiled, both because she had won her argument over Date, but also because she inadvertently had made her friend so happy. "That sounds fun, Iris."

* * *

A few hours later, Date and Hitomi were asleep while Iris turned off the 'A-SETting up' graphic on her stream. The screen changed to show an emulated version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl running in high definition, with a facecam of Iris sitting at her chair at Lemniscate's recording studio in the top right corner.

"Good evening! Good morning! And hello! It's me, Tesa! Also known as A-Set, you bet! Now I know what you all are thinking: 'Where's Shovelforge?'. Well, today I got some great news from the president of Lemniscate, who also happens to be my best friend and SISTER, as well a very special guest to tonight's stream! Everyone say hello to MIZUKI!" Iris scooted to the left of the camera to make room and spread her arms toward Mizuki as if to introduce a brand new star of the net world. Mizuki scooted a bit too hard, and rammed her chair with a thud into Iris's. With the grace of a seasoned idol, Iris dampened the impact by leaning into Mizuki, the spread arms wrapping around Mizuki in a hug, as if the whole thing was planned. "Why don't you tell everyone the news, Mizuki?"

Mizuki waved hi to the camera, smiling only a bit nervously. She'd been in A-Set videos for the YouTube channel before, but somehow being on a livestream felt scarier. At least for the prepared content, she could know that Lemniscate's editor would cut out any mistakes she made. Still, she spoke confidently, "Hey guys. I'm Mizuki. Anyway. A-Set is going to be in America next month, on April 13. Well, more than that, but she has a concert on April 13, the Friday before Super Smash Seminar, which is a big tournament on the west coast of America where they have tournaments for every game in the whole series, including my favorite, which is Brawl. Anyway, she's going to be at the concert, I'm going to go to the tournament, and we're going to practice the game on stream. So... yeah..."

"NOT ONLY THAT," Iris exploded, "but I'm _also_ going to be entering the tournament! So all you A-Set fans in America better come to Smash Seminar to cheer me on!"

"...That is news to me," Mizuki said. "But, cool. Hopefully we don't have to play each other. When you sign up online, make sure to mention that you don't want to be in the same pool as Tibbaroda."

"Will do! That's you, right? You go by Tibbaroda in-game?" Iris looked at Mizuki, who nodded in response. "How did you come up with that name?"

"Well, it's a little silly, I guess." Mizuki blushed, wondering if she really had to explain her gamertag. "You know how Tesa is just A-Set backwards, right?"

"Oh, so Tibbaroda backwards must be something important to you, huh? I'm really bad at jumbling these letters in my mind like that. If it was numbers I could do that, but for some reason letters are harder." As Iris spoke, she pressed start on her controller, advancing the game to the main menu, and navigated to the character select screen. "I'm sure someone in chat will let me know.

_I could just tell you outright,_ Mizuki thought, but she figured Iris was playing to the audience or something. She's good at keeping her stream audience engaged. "Who do you play in this game, anyway? I've only ever played sandbox and battle royale games with you."

"I donno," Iris replied. "When I played the old games in this series, I liked to play Isabelle because she was a cute little doggo. Or maybe just a big old pupper? Either way I loved her. I never played any of the REALLY old games like this one though. She's not in this one, so I guess I'll play..." Iris's eyes sparkled for a second as she locked into her character. 'FALCO' could be heard from the game's announcer. "I remember loving Falco!"

Mizuki smirked. She knew why Iris would like Falco. "That's actually a good choice if you want to enter the tournament, believe it or not. Falco's really good. His lasers kinda suck in all the other games, but in this one he can do two lasers every time he short-hops, and he can also do a lot of really good combos, which is pretty rare in this game."

"Neat! Who do you play, Mizuki?" Iris was still smiling.

Mizuki wondered for a second if she should really play her main. Iris was really good at Shovelforge survival mode and a lot of different shooting games, but if she hasn't played any platform fighters since she was a little kid, maybe she should go easy on her? Then again, how was she going to be able gauge how good Iris actually was if she didn't at least try to play seriously first? It's not like Iris was trying to make top 8 or anything like that, but it would be cool if she could at least win a set or two, especially if any A-Set fans actually showed up and watched Iris play. Then again, if Iris is really bad, going full tryhard in the first game wouldn't really tell Mizuki much beyond three neutral interactions. Mizuki thought all of this for just a second too long, mouth slightly agape.

Suddenly Mizuki felt a poke on her cheek. "Uh, Earth to Mizuki?" Iris teased.

"Sorry," Mizuki shook her head. Realizing she was probably overthinking it, she selected her main, Meta Knight. "If anyone in your chat knows anything at all about competitive Smash, they've probably heard about how good Meta Knight is. People have won major tournaments with other characters, but Meta Knight is the best by a longshot."

With an exaggeratedly worried look on her face, Iris got up close to the microphone and whispered in a soft voice, "Wow, she's really not going to go easy on me, is she?" Mizuki smirked and pressed start and selected a random stage. The game was set to only go to the stages that were legal in tournaments.

"I'm on the top of the JP netplay ladder, so don't feel too bad if you don't do super great at first." Mizuki decided to try her best, but she wanted to make sure Iris didn't get discouraged immediately.

"Wow! That's so cool! We have a professional here on my stream!"

The stage had finished loading. The first game would be on Smashville, a small stage with one platform that moved back and forth across the main platform. Mizuki laughed. "I know you don't know this, but it's funny that this is the first stage we got, because in competitive sets, this is almost always the first stage people play on."

"Oh? Why's that?" Iris asked as she did a series of perfect short-hop double lasers with Falco on-screen.

Mizuki was taken aback by how good Iris was at doing an advanced technique she had only just heard about and never seen, but still, Mizuki made the Meta Knight on-screen slowly walk forward and perfect shield each laser. "It's just a really simple stage that doesn't give a major advantage to any character so it's really fair for the first game."

When Meta Knight reached the center of the stage, Iris jolted forward in her chair as Falco rushed forward to dash attack. The hit connected! ...with Meta Knight's shield. As soon as Mizuki heard the distinctive sound of an attack touching a shield, she executed the same punish she had done a million times before. It was pure instinct by this point, no conscious thought. It started with a down throw and a tech chase, but all it looked like was a flurry of sword swipes after that. Before it had even seemed like the game had started, Iris had already lost the first of her three stocks.

"Wow, Mizuki, you really weren't kidding about how good you are, huh? That was incredible! I couldn't do anything!"

As Iris's avatar respawned, Mizuki snapped back to awareness. "Oh, yeah... Heh... well, if you want me to give you advice as we play--"

"Of course! It's not every day you get to learn a new game from the best player in the world!"

Mizuki blushed at the implication. Good as she was, Japan was just one region, and netplay was just netplay. "Okay, well, toward the end there, when you were offstage, you tried jumping back to stage right away. I was still chasing you, so I was able to hit you right after you jumped, and you don't get to jump again even if someone hits you. Try using your side special or up special to get back to stage, or just air dodging and waiting until I'm done attacking you."

"Alright, I think I get it." Iris pressed down to make Falco get off the respawn platform and immediately chased down Meta Knight. Falco shot a single laser. Mizuki's Meta Knight shielded it. With another great lurch from Iris, the Falco on screen ran in and grabbed! 

Mizuki blinked in shock. Iris didn't even need to ask why she got hit the first time, she just made the adjustment in how she used lasers instantly. It made sense, she supposed. Conditioning the opponent is sort of a thing in a lot of multiplayer games. Mizuki never played on the opposing team to Iris in any of the battle royale games they played together, so she never really thought about how good Iris was at intuiting higher-level mechanics. "Good conditioning!"

Iris only impressed Mizuki more when Falco threw Meta Knight downward, then instantly regrabbed, and threw downward again. And again, and again...

"Okay, hold on. Are you trying to hussle me, Iri--er, Tesa? Because I think you skipped a few steps."

"Huh?" Iris finished the combo at the edge of the stage by having Falco up smash after the down throw. "I don't know what you mean. I just remembered from the games I played as a kid that down throw was usually what you used for combos, and you said Falco could do combos, so I just tried that."

...

The night continued like that, Mizuki making only small suggestions and Iris improving at an obscenely fast rate. By the end of the stream, Mizuki was going full tryhard and still barely winning most of the games. Iris tried a few characters besides Falco and learned that she really liked Diddy Kong and Zero Suit Samus, because she could establish stage control with bananas or armor pieces, which reminded her of building structures in Shovelforge or those battle royale games. Mizuki stuck with Meta Knight.

"Okay, anyway! That's enough for today! Thank you everyone! I'll be streaming daily, so keep your eyes open and stay tuned! Unless I get abducted or something. Please follow me here and on To-Witter if you haven't already! If you don't, you'll make me so aggro! Thank you so much for watching! See ya!" With that sign off, Iris ended the stream and let out the deepest sigh Mizuki had ever heard, like a deflating bouncy castle.

"Are you alright, Iris?" Mizuki asked, standing up and stretching.

Iris inhaled, looking renewed. "Yeah, streaming is just exhausting sometimes. It feels like you're holding your breath the whole time, you know?"

Mizuki didn't really get it, but she nodded. "I didn't make that worse, did I?"

Iris looked Mizuki in the eyes, stood up from her chair, and walked right up to Mizuki. Putting her hands on her sister's shoulders, Iris said, "Of course not. This was the most fun I've had streaming in a really long time." Iris wrapped her arms around Mizuki in a warm embrace.

After a moment, Iris pulled away. A smile quickly grew on her face, as though she was realizing something all over again. "Oh my god! We're going on vacation!" Iris grabbed Mizuki's hands and started bouncing in place. "Come on, be excited with me."

Mizuki smiled slightly and bounced a little bit. "It's not really a vacation for you, though. You have that concert the day before the tournament."

Iris stopped bouncing and waved her hand dismissively. "I get to sing and dance in front of a whole new audience and also go on a trip with my dad and sister. I see this as an absolute win!"

Mizuki shuddered at Iris calling Date 'dad'. Thinking of Iris as her sister was easy enough, but that would mean they had the same parents, and if Iris calls Date 'dad', then shouldn't she, too? Mizuki was frowning.

Iris understood. This was far from the first time Mizuki had gotten uncomfortable about this. "Hey," Iris started softly, "it's okay. Renju asked Date to raise you for a reason, okay?" Mizuki hugged Iris and started crying softly into her chest.

"I'm sorry, it's stupid, I know." Mizuki was speaking between sniffles.

"You're not stupid." Iris was stroking Mizuki's head. "It'll take time to get used to all this."

"It's been two years and I still can't even call the people raising me mom and dad!"

With a single breathless laugh, Iris replied, "It's okay, there's not a time limit or anything."

Mizuki nodded, but she couldn't say anything.

Eventually, she calmed down, and the two sisters took a taxi home.

* * *

One month later, Iris, Mizuki, and Date were sitting by their gate at the Haneda Airport.

"If you don't win this tournament I'm gonna be really mad, Mizuki," Date said.

Iris and Mizuki looked at each other and grinned. They'd been training hard. The only thing left to do was play.


	2. PLaiN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris and Mizuki make their way to the tournament, Date gets grumpy.

Date wondered how he got here. 44 years old, in the middle seat for a ten-hour flight between two teenage girls. He didn't even have Aiba with him, since she would never have made it through security. He wouldn't have minded using his old false eye for a weekend, but he hated that they were sitting on the right-side seats of the plane. He had to turn his head to see most of the plane. In front of him, his food tray was down, with Mizuki's laptop on it, playing an emulated version of Brawl. Date closed his eyelids and took a deep breath. His ears were filled with the arrhythmic clack of plastic controllers. "The joys of parenting," he muttered under his breath.

'GAME!' came up on screen as Iris made a small fist pump.

"Good job, Iris!" Mizuki, sitting at the window seat, smiled past Date and at her sister, who occupied the aisle seat.

Iris opened her mouth to respond, but she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning to the aisle, she saw a flight attendant standing over her. "Oh, I'm sorry," Iris began, "are we making too much noise?" 

The flight attendant, a tall American woman in her mid-40's, shook her head apologetically. "No, nothing like that. I'm sorry if this seems unprofessional, but I had to ask: are you A-Set?"

Iris smiled and made a playful motion with her hands mimicking a kitten's paw. "A-Set, you bet!"

"Oh my god, my son is such a huge fan of yours. He's always going on about how much he loves your music, he's going to your concert tonight, and he even said he wanted to go to some video game seminar or something because you'd be there."

"Smash Seminar?" Mizuki piped up from the window seat.

The flight attendant smiled and nodded her head at Mizuki. "That's the one." Turning back to Iris, she asked, "Would you mind terribly if I got a picture with you? My son would think I was the coolest mom ever."

Iris's face betrayed her excitement. "Of course!"

"Thank you so much." The flight attendant pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen a few times to get to the camera app. "Would you mind taking the picture, sir?"

Date opened his eyelids and took the phone begrudgingly. "Sure thing, lady." He aimed the camera at Iris, who was smiling and holding up the peace sign with her fingers. The flight attendant kneeled down to get on the same level, and Date snapped the picture without much fanfare.

"Thank you so much, again. If you or your family need anything at all, just let me know." The flight attendant retrieved her phone with a smile and began to head off, but Date spoke up.

"Would you happen to have any ambien?"

The flight attendant hesitated for a moment, trying to work out if he was serious. With a concerned and confused look, she replied, "No?"

"Oh well. Can't blame a guy for trying. Thanks, ma'am."

The flight attendant wandered off with a frown.

Iris shrugged and turned back to the laptop in front of Date. When she pressed start to begin a new game, Date interrupted. "Hey, how about we pace ourselves, yeah? Aiba's always telling me you're not supposed to play game for more than an hour without taking a break." Without waiting for a response, he leaned forward and pressed the ESC key, closing the emulator.

"Hey!" Mizuki protested.

"Besides," Date started, "if I have to hear the clack of those controllers on both sides of me for ten hours straight, you're going to think it's still Saito in this body." Mizuki pouted and looked out the window at the clouds. Date continued, "You know, if you switched seats with me, I wouldn't mind as much."

"Ew, gross! I don't want the middle seat!" Mizuki slapped Date's shoulder angrily. "Pervert," she muttered.

"How is that perverted?" Date hissed back. When Mizuki didn't respond, Date turned to his left. "How about you, Iris? Wouldn't you rather sit next to Mizuki?"

Iris tilted her head. "I dunno, my ticket says I have to sit in the aisle seat."

Date put his hand on his face and took a deep breath. "I don't think it matters, Iris." 

"If it didn't matter, why did they assign seats? I don't want to get in trouble."

Date let his head hang in defeat. "Whatever. How about we check your brackets?"

"It doesn't matter," Mizuki said. "The only reason you'd look at brackets normally is to study your opponents, but there's not going to be much tournament footage of anyone besides top players. Nobody else but Smash Seminar runs events for this game."

Date ignored her. He just wanted to do something mildly engaging to hopefully delay Iris and Mizuki getting back to playing. He typed away at the keyboard to get to the website for this tournament, and went to the Brawl singles bracket. When he got there, Date had no idea how to interpret that he was seeing. "How am I supposed to find Mizuki or Iris?"

Mizuki rolled her eyes. "You're not going to find us under those names. Look up Tibbaroda and A-Set." When Date just stared at the screen for a second blankly, Mizuki reached over to the laptop and typed the two tags into the site's attendee search bar. "There. Stupid old man." Mizuki returned to staring at the clouds.

Date ignored the insult and looked the the screen. "Oh, good. You two are in the same pool. That'll make it easy to track."

Mizuki's head snapped back toward Date. "What!? That's bullshit, what the fuck?"

"Hey! Language," Date snapped. Mizuki ignored him and snatched the laptop from Date, staring intensely at the screen.

"This means we can't both make it out of pools in winners bracket! If we both do well, we'll have to play each other to make it out!" Mizuki's eyebrows were furrowed so hard it looked painful. "You told them to put us in different pools, right, Iris?"

Iris nodded her head. "I did. There was a field for special requests on the signup page, and I wrote to make sure I wasn't in the same pool as Tibbaroda. I even specified Mizuki Okiura in case there was more than one player with that tag."

Mizuki scrolled to the bottom of the webpage and clicked on the 'contact tournament organizer' link. It took her to a To-Witter page. As Mizuki began to move the mouse toward the 'privately message' icon, the pinned To-Weet caught her eye. It was from yesterday.

'ABOUT SMASH SEMINAR', with a link to a longer text post. Mizuki read the post out loud under her breath.

> some of you may have noticed the registration numbers for smash seminar look kind of fucky. well, i can assure you that's because they are kind of fucky. we had to cap brawl at 2048 entrants. that's easily the most entrants of any event this year. normally we like to take a relaxed pace to the older games, but with this year we don't really have that as an option. as such, some schedule changes have to be made, including friday pools for attendees who have friday passes and making brawl's top 8 the grand finale of the event

> if you're wondering why brawl has had such an inexplicable explosion of entrants this year, the best explanation we've found is a pretty unlikely one, but it's all we've got. A-Set, the japanese net idol, announced that she would be attending this year's event for brawl about a month ago. she has a concert ten minutes away from the venue on friday, and it looks like a huge swath of her fans who were going to be in the area anyway decided to enter the tournament as well to get more interaction with A-Set. IF YOU HAVE FRIDAY POOLS, YOU WILL BE EXPECTED TO PLAY ON FRIDAY. IF YOU DO NOT SHOW UP AND GO TO THE CONCERT INSTEAD, YOU WILL BE DISQUALIFIED

> one final note: because of the extremely high volume of requests to play in the same pool as A-Set, all A-Set-related requests will be ignored

Mizuki's anger faded a bit by the time she finished reading. She turned to look at Iris. "Your fans are crazy, huh, Iris?" She sighed. "Whatever, at least we still have Saturday pools."

* * *

The plane landed at about noon PST. “I can't wait to get to the hotel room and take a nap,” Iris said with a yawn as they all waited for the taxi they called.

“Yeah, same, honestly,” Date agreed.

Mizuki looked away at the ground and muttered under her breath. “If I'd said that, you'd call me a baby for wanting a nap.”

“What was that?” Date asked innocently.

“I said you should have fixed your sleep schedule to this timezone before we got here!” Mizuki barked at Date.

“Sorry, not all of us are little babies without jobs!” Date barked back.

Iris rolled her eyes with a smile at the bickering, but said nothing.

The taxi arrived and took them to their hotel. The trio was silent for the whole ride aside from some clarifying instructions given to the driver. Date checked them into the hotel and they made their way to their room, 765 on the seventh floor.

“So when do we need to be at the venue for the concert, anyway?” Date asked as he used his card key to the hotel room. The sensor on the handle turned red and Date opened the door. It was a standard suite, with two queen-sized beds and a small desk with a chair.

“It starts at 7:00pm and goes until 10:00pm,” Mizuki replied. She tossed her duffle bag onto the floor next to the bed closest to the door. Iris put her backpack onto that same bed, while Date took his suitcase over to the other bed and placed it on beside it. _Good,_ Mizuki thought, _I was worried Date was going to be a weirdo and want to share a bed with one of us._

Iris yawned again. “Cool, that should give us plenty of time to take a power nap. Figure we get to sleep by 1:00, sleep for two REM cycles, wake up at 5:00, then I have an hour to get ready and then time to get to the venue and do sound checks.”

“Yeah, whatever you just said works for me,” Date responded.

“The only small problem is that our pool starts at 8:00am, so definitely don't do an encore and come straight back here if you want to be well-rested for the tournament tomorrow.” Mizuki looked very serious while giving these incisive commands. “If you're tired, you're going to have a slower reaction time and you won't be happy with how you play.”

“Geez, Mizuki, it's not that serious," Date teased. "Just because a thousand A-Set fans decided to come to a Brawl tournament doesn't mean it's a real fighting game or takes any real skill.” Date yawned as he took his jacket off and folded it over his suitcase. Before Mizuki could make a witty retort, Date added, “Anyway, I know you're not going to sleep right now because you fixed your sleep schedule to this timezone, so just be sure to wake us up at 5, alright?”

Mizuki decided to let the teasing go and just nodded.

“Oh, and one more thing: I don't mind if you want to hang out in the lobby or whatever, but please don't leave the hotel, alright? It's a big city you've never been in, I don't want you getting lost or worse.”

Mizuki swallowed. Her voice cracked a bit when she responded, “Sure thing, Da... Date.” She gritted her teeth silently. Who was he to act all concerned over her?

“Oh, and if you're going to practice the game, for the love of god, please do it in the lobby. I won't be able to sleep with all that noise your controller makes if you play in here.”

“Okay! Any other requests, princess? Want me to tuck you in and get some warm milk?” Mizuki snapped. She quickly unzipped her duffle bag and took her laptop and controller out of it, transferring them to her backpack. “Enjoy your nap!” Mizuki stormed out, swinging the door open and letting it shut with a slam behind her.

Instantly she felt a bit bad. Mom always slapped Mizuki when she acted like this. _This is why I'm an awful daughter,_ Mizuki thought. She pressed the down button on the elevator to go down to the lobby. The breath from her own nose felt hot. When the elevator door opened, it was mercifully empty. Mizuki stepped in and pressed '1'. The door closed.

Mizuki was shaking.

Mizuki looked at her right hand. A teardrop fell onto her palm.

A sharp impact struck Mizuki's face. She had slapped herself. “YOU'RE NOT HIS FUCKING DAUGHTER!” She slapped herself again. “YOUR PARENTS ARE DEAD.” Another slap. “DATE.” Slap. “IS NOT.” Slap. “YOUR DAD.” Two more slaps.

Mizuki's vision was fully blurred with tears by this point. She tried wiping them away but there was just so much. The elevator beeped as it reached the first floor.

_Screw Date. I only needed him so they'd let me on the plane. I can take care of myself. _Even hardly being able to see, Mizuki exited the elevator and made a bee-line for the exit. _Four hours is enough time to go to the tournament venue, pick up my entry badge, play a few friendlies, and get back in time to wake Iris up for her concert._

Mizuki tried again to wipe her own tears away, slightly more successfully this time. She entered the address for the tournament venue into the GPS on her phone. The directions were simple enough, and the venue was only a ten minute walk away. Mizuki pulled earbuds out of her pocket, plugged them into her phone, turned on some ambient music, and started walking with purpose down the damp, overcast streets of California.

* * *

Ten minutes and a lot of mid-sidewalk puddles later, Mizuki arrived at the doors of the venue with her shoes soaked through to her socks. After a halfhearted attempt to dry her shoes on the doormat in front of the convention center, Mizuki stepped inside. There was a sign immediately visible, pointing her toward the badge pickup.

She made her way there and got in the back of the line. Upon reaching the front, the person manning the desk with a laptop in front of them simply asked “Name and tag?”

“Mizuki Okiura, Tibbaroda. I was also wondering if I could pick up my sister's badge for her?”

Without looking at her, the person manning the desk started typing away at their laptop and absentmindedly responded, “Yeah, just give me a sec.” After a few more seconds of typing and clicking, he asked, “You said Tibbaroda?” Mizuki nodded. “Alright, here you go,” replied as he handed Mizuki a badge with a lanyard that had the Smash Seminar logo on it and the word 'competitor' at the bottom. As Mizuki put the lanyard on over her head and moved her hair out from under the string, the clerk asked, “What's your sister's name and tag?”

“Iris Sagan. A-Set.”

The clerk laughed softly. “No way, come on—OH!” His eyes widened with sudden realization. “You're Tesa's sister! Oh my god, I watched all those streams you did with her! You look so different in person. Not like bad different, you look good. I mean, not like that. You're 14. Huge fan. Of your Meta Knight, I mean.”

Mizuki felt a lot of sympathy pain for this guy. “Um, thanks. So A-Set?”

“Of course!” He practically threw another competitor badge at Mizuki. “Hey, could I ask a question about Tesa?”

Mizuki felt awkward knowing that there was a long, growing line behind her, but replied, “Sure.”

“Does she have a boyfriend? She's so open and honest on her stream but she never acknowledges chat when that topic comes up.”

_Oh god,_ Mizuki thought. Obviously she knew the real question he was asking. “Sorry, you'd have to ask her,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “Anyway, bye.” Mizuki fast-walked away before he could respond.

The convention room floor was huge, way bigger than Mizuki thought it would be. Sure, the other Smash games are usually more popular, but Brawl was only going to have like 200 entrants before Iris's fans swarmed this event. But wow. She couldn't even see the wall on the other side of the room it was so huge. The ceiling had seven large signs hanging from them, indicating the tournament area for each of the Smash games being hosted at this event. In the center of the room was a stage where all the stream setups were located. That was also where top 8 would be played on Sunday night, Mizuki supposed. “I hope I can make it to Sunday,” she whispered to herself.

Mizuki felt a bump on her right shoulder as someone brushed past her. “Get out of the doorway, kid!” The voice came from somewhere; maybe the guy who bumped into her, or maybe the guy who bumped into her right after.

“Okay, geez. Rude much?” Mizuki said this at normal speaking voice, which in this room was totally inaudible. The muttering of what had to be at least 5000 people all totaled came together to make the loudest white noise Mizuki had ever heard.

Mizuki made her way to the Brawl play area to see the competition. People who had Friday pools were competing today. She saw a lot of unfamiliar faces who barely seemed to have a handle on the basic movement. A-Set fans, probably. She kept walking, seeing if there were any top players she recognized playing. Eventually there was one she recognized, a Pikachu player who went by Wi-Fidelity, a grand finalist of the past three Smash Seminars, and the champion of the one before that. He was playing some Kirby who liked to dash attack randomly.

Wi-Fidelity shielded the dash attack and grabbed. Free punish, obviously. The Pikachu on screen threw the Kirby forward, which comboed into an up smash attack, doing 22% total. _Good punish,_ Mizuki thought to herself. Wi-Fidelity wasn't done. He ran forward and waited for the Kirby to airdodge. As soon as the airdodge finished, Pikachu short-hopped and hit the Kirby with an up aerial attack, getting the right hitbox on the tail to send the Kirby straight up and lead into a footstool. Kirby tumbled down and hit the ground. Wi-Fidelity's expression didn't change as he executed an extremely long and technical jab lock combo, keeping Kirby on the ground by using Quick Attack to zip back and forth past Kirby. Slowly Kirby's damage racked up to 120%. Wi-Fidelity waited for Kirby to do the forced neutral getup animation out of jab lock, and up smashed, KO'ing Kirby. “Nice!” Mizuki yelled.

When a nearly identical situation happened on the Kirby's second stock, Mizuki rolled her eyes and said, “Kirby has six jumps and you're not going to use any of them to escape this combo, huh?” She hadn't meant for anyone to hear it, but someone standing next to her turned his head toward her.

“Woah, shit! You're Tibbaroda! A-Set's sister, right?” He was yelling, but was only faintly audible over the noise of the room.

Mizuki didn't take her eyes off the screen she was watching, but yelled back, “Yeah, I'm watching this though!”

When the Kirby did a third dash attack into Pikachu's loving arms for a third time in a row, Mizuki sighed. However, this time the Kirby player decided to jump after the up smash, making the Pikachu miss the up aerial. Instead the Pikachu began chasing the Kirby in the air with forward aerials.

“That's cool! My name's Kyle, I'm a huge fan of the stream! I even have a side bet with my buddy that you and A-Set both make top 8!”

“Well I have bad news, which is that we're in the same pool, so that's not very likely!”

“Wow, that sucks! Even if you weren't from the same region... well, household, even. You two should both be top 16 seeds, easily!”

“Thanks! I thought the same thing but they didn't change pools for anyone who made a request about A-Set because there were so many!”

Kyle laughed heartily. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense! Still sucks though! Hey, when this is over would you mind signing my badge? I wanted to get you and A-Set on opposite sides!”

Mizuki smiled incredulously. She figured some people would know her as Iris's sister, but didn't think anyone would really care about her being there. Still, she didn't have any reason to refuse. “Sure.”

Right as Mizuki said that, Wi-Fidelity's Pikachu landed a raw up smash on Kirby, winning the game with no stocks lost.

Mizuki clapped, then stopped quickly when she realized nobody else was. It was an unstreamed pools match, why would she clap?

“Anyway.” She turned toward Kyle, who already had a permanent marker at the ready. He handed it and his badge to Mizuki, who quickly signed it 'てィバロダ'.

Wi-Fidelity made a few quick finger moments at the pool captain, signalling that he had won the set vs the Kirby 2-0. When the pool captain gave a thumbs up, Wi-Fidelity turned his attention to Kyle and Mizuki. “You're lucky I didn't lose that!” he accused, pointing a finger at Mizuki.

“Huh?” Mizuki had no idea what he was talking about.

“I heard the tip you shouted at my opponent! If I had lost because of that, I would have reported that to a tournament organizer! I don't know how they do things in Japan, but mid-set coaching is banned here, so don't try and pull any shit like that again!”

“Bro, calm down, you 3-stocked him, and she clearly didn't mean for either of you to hear it.” Kyle tried to defuse the situation.

Wi-Fidelity pointed his finger at Kyle. “Mind your damn business! What are you getting her autograph for anyway? She's just a netplay warrior from an irrelevant region.”

“I'm just a fan of her stream, why are you--”

Wi-Fidelity cut Kyle off with an ugly, mocking laugh. “Dude! I thought you were dick-riding Japan, but you're just a pedo and this is your e-girl, huh?”

“Woah! What the fuck dude?” Kyle protested.

“I, uh... I think I'm gonna go.” Mizuki started stepping backwards.

Wi-Fidelity got one last word in. “Listen kid, let me give you some advice. Stay away from guys like this. The Smash community has a lot of creeps in it. Go find your friends or whoever you came with, and stick with them. Don't drink anything you've taken your eyes off of.”

“Um.” Mizuki turned around and ran off without another word.

* * *

Mizuki headed back to the hotel, took a seat in the lobby, and sent a message to Ota.

> Hey Ota. You up?

A few minutes passed. No response.

She spent a few hours practicing advanced techniques on her laptop, then went upstairs to wake up Iris and Date.


End file.
